Football
Mike Whalley 8y

Jurgen Klopp keen to develop young players at Liverpool

LIVERPOOL -- Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp wants to keep up his reputation for developing young players, but says he will not bring through local talent for the sake of it.

Klopp has brought through a host of young players during his 14 years in management with Mainz and Borussia Dortmund.

At Mainz, he gave a debut to Serbian centre-back Neven Subotic, and also oversaw the development of future Chelsea and Wolfsburg winger Andre Schurrle.

During his seven years at Dortmund, notable successes included attacking midfielder Mario Gotze, a product of the club's youth system who scored the winning goal for Germany in the 2014 World Cup final, and striker Robert Lewandowski, who was signed as a relative unknown from Polish side Lech Poznan at the age of 21.

Klopp spent seven years at both Mainz and Dortmund, giving him time to build teams and develop players. And he wants to do the same at Liverpool, at a time when the club lack locally-produced first-team regulars following the departure of Steven Gerrard at the end of last season.

Full-back Jon Flanagan, who is recovering from knee surgery, is the one local player at the club with any kind of extensive first-team experience, although midfielder Jordan Rossiter is on the fringes of the squad, and there are high hopes for Manchester-born Cameron Brannagan, the captain of the Reds' under-21 side, who has just signed a new three-year contract.

Liverpool are so short of homegrown senior players that they were only able to name a 21-strong squad for the Europa League this season, as they had no one available to fill the four spots resolved for club-trained players.

Klopp has spent time assessing the club's young prospects, with the help of academy director Alex Inglethorpe, and will promote the best on merit rather than their place of birth.

He said: "I don't think it's possible to bring a local player through just because he's a local player. But first of all we have to learn that we have to give these players enough time for development.

"Usually, the manager of a club is under big pressure -- but in the past, I have always stayed for seven years, so I could develop the way we treat these guys, how we handle them. That's what I try to do.

"We have to win games. But that's a reason why I'm here, to develop players -- everybody wants this and I want this too."

Klopp indicated that Brannagan certainly has the potential to one of the next wave of academy graduates to reach the first team.

He added: "He's a great young guy. I like his style. For his age, he has everything you need from a midfield player. He wants to play football, he's strong, he's clear, he's cool.

"It's not easy for these guys to train for the first time with a new manager and think always, 'He's going to make a final judgement,' or something like this. That's not how I work but these guys don't know this."

^ Back to Top ^